> Apple disrupted the market by redefining the smartphone
Apple invented the smartphone. The fact Nokia didn't understand that shows why it failed.
Nokia’s Burning Platform Memo (2011)
151–160 of 314 posts
Re: Nokia’s Burning Platform Memo (2011)
#152Earlier quoted context omitted.
The memo is from 2011, so that hardly matters?
I'm really having trouble understanding why this is even relevant in 2022. Who cares what the excuses and problems were within Nokia in 2011? Is Nokia's inability to keep up with cell phone technology in 2011 and important part of technical history? Business history? If so, why? I didn't even really get the burning oil rig analogy. It was a pretty melodramatic way of describing being beaten by a competitor, which hap…
Your failure to learn from history does not make the website irrelevant simply because it's not been updated since 2018
Re: Nokia’s Burning Platform Memo (2011)
#153Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem with Symbian was not the usability but the developer experience. SDK available only for Windows and really awkward to install and use? Check. Pre-11 C++ but without exceptions and something called cleanup stack and ELeave macro instead? Check. Ok, a whole periodic table of string classes instead of std::string (which would still have been terrible because it was before C++11)? Check. GUI API that was desi…
All true, and then there was also the schizophrenic S40 or S60 development too.
I was told by someone who had developed for both that S40 was much better for developers. Of course it was completely closed ecosystem except for J2ME apps so it didn't have much of future in competition with low end Android. I'd really like to know what Meltemi was like.
Re: Nokia’s Burning Platform Memo (2011)
#154I just bought a new Nokia phone. Part from nostalgia since the last one I owned was over 10 years ago, part because it seemed to be good value for its price (300€). Now, having used it for a while, I wouldn't say I'm impressed - design-wise Apple products for example are miles ahead. Yet I don't really have anything to complain about - it does what a modern phone should do. It's pretty big though so it's harder to pu…
> its price (300€)
> design-wise Apple products for example are miles ahead
Well yes, of course. The cheapest iPhone, the SE, which is of an old design and with an old chip, costs 500€+. You can't expect 50%+ price difference to result in no difference in what you get.
Premium Android phones closer to iPhone pricing are usually better design-wise.
Re: Nokia’s Burning Platform Memo (2011)
#155It was somewhat of a 3-body problem: carriers, oems, and developers. Carriers wanted branding and bundling. OEMs wanted to market a distinction design. Developers wanted a platform. Three cooks with competing tastes. For example: the Moto-Q ran Windows, shoe-horned in some AT&T UX junk, and a huge nubin that stuck out in the middle. It pioneered the ever present "pocket dial." Was thinking of developing for it, but a…
I worked an application that was distributed as part of the OS for pretty much every nokia symbian phone. We hired quite a few folks who had worked directly for Symbian. The stories were crazy. There were major components people refused to even touch (like messaging) because the code was basically unmaintainable. An aggressive refactor of the entire OS was needed but they never really got comfortable with that. Symbi…
The slab-phone was probably a response on the SonyEricsson P series that was really good, had a p900 myself (p800 2002,p900 2003,p910 2004). It's such a shame that SonyEricsson regressed in their design mojo because their 2006 followups of the series (p990, m600, w950) _decreased_ screen size and added front buttons (I started looking at other replacements until I got myself an iPhone 3G when they finally came out here).
Re: Nokia’s Burning Platform Memo (2011)
#156They didn't lose when the iPhones and Androids came out. They lost when at their peak because they became complacent. It just took a few years to manifest itself. If the leadership had been worth their salaries they would have known with every fiber of their being that Symbian was already dead. Both due to where hardware was going and because of the rather obvious answer to "how do the next 5 billion people get online".
Nokia was "old people in suits". I don't think the company was ever going to be capable of transformation.
Re: Nokia’s Burning Platform Memo (2011)
#157> Apple disrupted the market by redefining the smartphone Apple invented the smartphone. The fact Nokia didn't understand that shows why it failed.
No, they made a smartphone with UI/software first approach and thereby _matured_ it.
The 2002 SonyEricsson p800 (and the p900, p910 followups) kinda sniffed on the form-factor (it was basically the same if you disconnected the numpad) and software had all the features incl a "proper" browser (but not nearly the same polish).
Sadly it seems it was an isolated "enterprise" group that seems to have been hamstrung later (the followup phones made the form factor worse and the UI improvement was marginal compared to the leap the iPhone took).
Re: Nokia’s Burning Platform Memo (2011)
#158Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wonder if we ever going to see anything other than Android or iOS. A third ecosystem wouldn’t be so bad.
I don’t see how it can happen, on the same way we’ve been stuck with the Mac and DOS/Windows duopoly since the 80s. The problem is a new platform isn’t just competing with the established OSes themselves, it’s also competing with the associated peripheral, software and services ecosystems. Those consist of thousands of companies providing thousands of products and services worth trillions of dollars. There’s just no…
HarmonyOS is the only thing really new that I've seen , but I wouldn't touch it with a 10 ft pole.
Re: Nokia’s Burning Platform Memo (2011)
#159The best phone I owned was Nokia Lumia with Windows phone 7 OS. Too bad Microsoft was led by Ballmer at the time.
Re: Nokia’s Burning Platform Memo (2011)
#160Nokia N9 was the best phone I have ever owned. To these days their gesture navigation implementation is the best. And they had Swype keyboard preinstalled. Speaking of apps: Here maps, SoundHound, amazing mail client and calendar... Gosh I miss that phone. I used mine for about 3 years, I think, and sold it for more than a half of its original price in literally a couple of hours (which means my price was too low). B…
How would Meego have succeeded where Windows Phone, which had Microsoft’s backing, failed?